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SALT LAKE CITY -- The new KSL Cares campaign gives you the chance to help a Utah charity collect 20-thousand dollars. The latest charity to be profiled is the YWCA of Salt Lake City.
The YWCA has been a refuge in the community since 1906, providing women and children in crisis with two things they desperately need: a safe home and an open door.
Hundreds of women and children have come to the YWCA to seek refuge, shelter, a new start and above all, support.
Christina Isabel came to the shelter with her mother, when she was five years old.
"She came here looking for an opportunity to build another life," Isabel said about her mother.
The YWCA wasn't just Christina's home away from home, it was home.
"To be able to find a place where I was allowed to be a child to laugh out loud to giggle and to make connections with people in a safe way and trusting manner, that's home," Isabel said.
"Domestic violence is complicated," said prevention education director of the YWCA, Melinda Pettingell. "It's huge. And when people leave a situation where they are not safe in their home, they need far more than just shelter."
"With support, specifically with financial support," said Pettingell. "We are able to reach out to women and children and to fundamentally change their lives."
She went on to say, "It is one of those organizations that allows women and children to become more. And the gift we are able to receive from that as a community at large, and as a nation. We can only begin to see the rippling effect that has."
To vote for the YWCA, or any of the other charities featured during the KSL Cares campaign click here to be redirected to KSL TV's Facebook page.
E-mail: bwalker@ksl.com
